


do I run rare

by Figure_of_Dismay



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Baggage, Infidelity, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Season/Series 06, Slow Burn, emotional handwringing, episode: 6.01 pylon, feelings fic, it's 1969; and all that entails, period typical internalized homophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-21 14:04:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18703810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Figure_of_Dismay/pseuds/Figure_of_Dismay
Summary: Morse has had some uncomfortable realization recently and he has been left to cope on his own in the wilderness. Meanwhile, Thursday's own life has been quietly crumbling while he hopes nobody notices. The key to picking up the pieces is, perhaps, communication. Trust and communication. If Morse and Thursday are capable...Introspective Morse/Thursday threading into the first half of S6 and subtly changing course.





	do I run rare

**Author's Note:**

> this first part can almost stand alone as an introspective Morse piece, so I'm posting this now because I feel like this tag needs some more s6-related entries. I have a lot more waiting to be typed up, and it's still in progress. I believe it will be in the 20k range, all told. Chapter count is an estimate. 
> 
> Please keep in mind that, given the circumstances, this story will involve both infidelity, and Morse's uncomfortableness with being bisexual and Fred's denial or disconnect from his own identity. I'm trying to handle all of this with care, but they're tricky subjects so I'm warning fully.
> 
> "Now it's done.  
> Watch it go.  
> And you've changed some.  
> Water running from the snow.
> 
> Am I so dear?  
> Do I run rare?  
> And you've changed some:  
> peach, plum, pear." -- Joanna Newsom

His eyes met Thursday's over the waving heads of the long grass, dead and dry and sussurating in the breeze like the distant hum of blood that gathered in his ears, within the suddenly muted space of his skull. He hadn’t seen him for months by then, though he’d tried. He’d called and invited and asked after and everything shy of going around to their street and hanging around like a stray dog, begging and exuding pathos. All the while, refusing to consider why it was Thursday in particular he was trying to see, persisting and insisting with a level of compulsion that was familiar, long lasting and prodding, but not usually acknowledged by him, at least when it wasn’t drawing him along after a case or a fleeting object of fancy. It was the isolation, he supposed, that was plucking and twanging the connection to the one person who seemed to be the anchor, or constant in his life in Oxford. Making him cuttingly aware of the need to hold on to that one thing and aware of the way that Thursday was drawing away from him, far and farther away.

There was a dead girl on the ground, still and awful with death, not quite as if she were sleeping, with wildflowers in her hair. The air was close and humid and smelled of dry grass and the blackberry bushes along the verge of the road warming in the sun, and faintly of horse, and of exhaust from the scrum of police cars that had descended upon the field -- most of them aimless and unneeded but still they had come, to see, maybe, or amend what could not be amended. It was a place, a scene, warmly pastoral, idyllic, it was public and open, not the setting one expected for the discovery of a child murder, startling in its dissonance, and then there was Thursday, for the first time since winter, startling him all the more. 

DeBryn was there, doing his solemn, steady work -- which Morse only ever followed out of the corner of his eye -- and Box was milling around and stewing in his air of dismissive superiority, with his carefully coiffed hair and his double breasted suit. Box called Thursday ‘Fred,’ dismissively, with faux friendly-courtesy, right to his face. Sending him along as if he wasn’t Box’s superior in every way that mattered. It made Morse wince, for the understandable reasons and for ones he couldn’t put into words. He himself had only used his given name a handful of times that he could recall, talking to someone else, and certainly never like that. He couldn’t even picture it, when he tried, his whole body rebelled with the sensation of discourtesy, betrayal, unearned claiming of ownership. Seeing Thursday deferring to Box made his skin ache with wrongness.

The whole time, he stared at Thursday like he couldn’t quite believe he was there, like he could convey his hope and his dissatisfaction with only the power of his focus. He took in the paleness of Thursday’s face, even with the bright, mild summer they’d been having, and the new shading of silver in his hair -- a new haircut, he thought, too, shorter and more modern, like he was fitting in with a new kind of man -- the faint flush and sheen of summer heat on his skin. The last time they’d met, it had been in the cold and pearly afternoon of a January day, both of them in overcoats, and too stung by the cold and the awkwardness of knowing that Thursday’s disciplinary hearing had gone badly and not wanting to talk about it, knowing that Thursday had very nearly retired and then hadn’t and not wanting to talk about it, to linger over their pints or over their farewells on the pavement. That was the image that had lingered within him, pale winter Thursday in his heavy overcoat with the collar turned up and hat set firm, faint frown and solid stance against the cold, the stiff nod with which they’d parted, the proud but trudging silhouette of him walking away up the lane as the evening gloom closed in. It was an image he had revisited many times since, wondering if there was something else he should have said, if he should have pushed harder, made it clear that he would listen, or if he should have tried harder to make sure Thursday couldn’t see he was torturously curious and worry. Revisited because it was the last, though he hadn’t expected it to be, and now they were flung to the wide winds and might ever be so. 

This new, summer Thursday was a half-stranger, startling. They had spent four summers together in the past of course, but those had been spent naturally together, having been used to each other all through the lengthening days, quietly grumbling about the gathering heat. The casual familiarity of rumbled and rolled shirtsleeves, suffering in the uncertain auspices of the black jag in the sun, with the windows opened to let in the air as they went to and fro, smelling each other’s aftershave vaporize and fade throughout the day. Retreating to the cool dark of the old stone pubs, elbow to elbow with their pints and Morse’s crosswords and the work between them. This was different. This was like meeting the ghost of a life lost and longed for -- only not altogether lost he thought with prickling desperation. And as he tried to absorb Thursday’s presence, he stared in return. Dark eyes piercing and steady, full of questions, and regrets, and something heavy and indecipherable that stirred in Morse worries and nerves. 

Thursday had at times accused him of being difficult and opaque, incommunicative, but Morse had always known that Thursday was no different, in his own more graceful ways. He was better at giving the impression of being available to those around him, but Morse knew that when Thursday didn’t want anyone to know what he was thinking or what was bothering him, there was nothing he could do to get close to the issue until or unless Thursday decided to relent and divulge it.

Something was wrong, though, he could tell that. Possibly everything was wrong. Morse wanted nothing more than to follow him and ask and ask and ask until Thursday let him in. Until Thursday talked, and came alive, and that awful defeated posture left him. Until Thursday looked at him again the way he used to, partner to partner, and not like they were stricken and trapped appart, across a great distance.

 _Let me,_ he thought, and stared and stared, _Let me, let me._ He couldn’t even tell himself what he wanted to be allowed. Onto the case, sent out to find the person who could do that to a child, or to know what was going on at the new station that Thursday let Box treat him this way, or only, more fundamentally, understand what had happened to the man himself, what grave thing held him in its teeth. Eventually he had to change his focus, look away, feeling flushed and lost and vulnerably over-visible. Box was there, witnessing this reunion, and though he didn’t seem to care about Morse, or about what working acord there might have been between them, it was not what he would have chosen. He could ask none of what he wanted to like this.

Morse was sent away. Box was eager to put him in his place, seemingly unaware that he was so far from the first that such tactics no longer touched him, but Morse only lingered and stalled. Not really going away when sent and not being punished for it was something he’d learned around the time his father and Gwen had taken him in, and the skill had never left him. It was just as useful in the police as in that grey place, staying in places he wasn’t wanted, ignoring the pointed looks that implied his unwelcomeness but stopped shy of outright insistence. He stalled and waited and ably avoided the hints aimed his way. Eventually Box left, and Thursday was still there, and there was nothing to stop him, then, from ducking back under the cordon and into the middle of things.

There was still a dead child on the ground, an abhorrent event, after the first discovery of her, he’d only been able to make his eyes skim past. And yet, in the same breath, he was standing nearer to a case, and to Thursday, than he had been in months, and they were looking at the crime scene like partners, if only for a few moments. His heart beat hard and insistent, thundering in him, abrading him, and he couldn’t tell if it was the horror of death, or if it was the electric sense of purpose of the work -- the partnership -- that knocked and roiled in him.

*

It was almost a relief to retreat back to the little brick Woodstock station, after the first wrangle of it, yet again half way in and half way out of the team. He’d become used to only his own company, and fallen somewhat out of practice with the effort of making his way between welcome and unwelcome. Maybe it was disappointing not to be in the thick of things, but it was still satisfying to close the door behind him for the night, distant, quiet and alone. 

It was a close, stuffy building and it smelled faintly of damp even in the late, deep greenery of summer, and it was a long drive to get anywhere from the outpost, but he was alone there. Alone in a way he’d only been able to find before late at night back at Cowley. Sometimes the isolation was peaceful, a lot of the time it was. He could open the windows and turn up his music, and there was no one there whose judgement he had to flinch from and no constant output of manners to mind. Less effort that way, he didn’t find himself quite so exhausted at the end of the day. 

On the other hand, the feeling of insistent restlessness that dogged him was no boon, and his simple rounds and routine reports did nothing to shift it. He could have his music and crosswords in the peace he’d thought he’d craved and still, all he could feel was discontent. 

He’d had the chance to be to George Fancy what Thursday had been to him, at least in the most literal and approved sense, but he’d been too involved in his own leads, his own ultimately fruitless romantic entanglements and the ticking, creeping dread that came into him whenever Thursday raised the subject of his possible retirement. He’d been so afraid of losing Thursday, of the looming retirement, of the strained complication of Joan coming between them, that he hadn’t even tried to build something else or lend any substantive guidance to Fancy. Then he’d found himself staring down at George’s body in that bar and seen clearly how small and petty he’d been -- seeing a young, personable DC as little more than a symbol of Thursday’s being finished with him, and therefore resenting the very sight of him. He could have done his part to make Fancy part of the team he now mourned. If nothing else, he had wasted the chance to help a copper learn to do the job properly. He could have been a friend to that young man, as much as he ever could be, and taught him, or at least not yelled at him just because the implication of his presence made Morse itch with worry. But the dead are gone and will admit no apologies, nor accept or be helped by any regrets. No matter what they did or didn’t do on George’s behalf, he was gone, and Morse’s own cruelty to him could never be amended. 

He understood Strange’s insistence on continuing the investigation, but it wasn’t going to aid George himself, and though Morse wanted to see those responsible be made to pay for their crimes, he was also clear eyed enough to see that spread to the wide reaches as they were, there was nothing more for the Cowley team to do on his behalf. Of course there was guilt in letting it go but there was guilt for Morse in every thought about George -- and funny how he was George in his thoughts now, even though while he’d been alive, he’d been nothing more than DC Fancy -- so one more weight on the scales made very little difference. Morse’s life was unglued and unresolved, and riddled with guilt, that was the state of things, and he had to accept it and let it become his life so that he could carry on. Eventually, the months had gone by, a dreary, anxious spring had lightened into summer with little change in circumstance and eventually Morse had acclimated. 

He’d lived with isolation and dissatisfaction before after all, for years at a time, sometimes. If nothing else, it reassured him that he could endure it, like he could endure the summer ehat and the wool uniform thrust back upon him at this late age. He had practice with all of this and while sometimes his pride shuddered and yawed and made some near cousin of anger stirr in the pit of his gut, he reminded himself it was no more than his due for his carelessness. In fact, he’s spent the most recent weeks convincing himself that he was, though not content with his lot -- not that he felt he ought to be -- at least well settled, entrenched and coping with it. He’d been congratulating himself on gaining the maturity to not struggle so piteously on the hook. 

Then he had been caught in Thursday’s so magnetic, so-knowing but too distant gaze across that field and everything him had risen up and resettled, uncomfortably in new places, like flotsam disarranged by a violent tide. Morse had known then. Every pleasant, not pleasant but safe fiction he’d clutched these last six month had tilted away and begun to dissolve. Nothing was right, and nothing was comfortably settled and accepted, and nothing he could say or do now seemed likely to fix what was wrong. He could solve this and a hundred others and he would still feel this panic of wrongness. The landscape of his life had been wrecked, plowed through and scattered, and Thursday looked at him like he was a visitor from a lost land where he meant never to return.

He lay in bed that night, in his still humid quarters, and asked himself what he was doing. What he was wanting with such a ridiculous, fevered pitch. He tasted the coppery tang of his own desperation on his tongue. He lay on his narrow brass bed, on his back, arms folded behind his head and trying to see his thoughts splayed out on the uneven plastered gable above his head. Nothing so clear would come.

He closed his eyes and, half-dreaming, let himself think of those long gone early days, where in the ordinary course of his new routine he knew better than to dwell. He pictured himself, let himself see again, driving the big black jag, the smell of the wood and leather and dust and warmth, of Thursday’s pipe smoke, and a shared but unquantifiable familiar smell. Pulling up to their house, Thursday’s tidy house, in the morning. Often misted, or dew spangled, crisp, early, not quite bleary. Making his way up the short paved walk to the door, straightening his coat and planning what he would say. He’d ring and sometimes-Sam-but-usually-Joan would let him in, tease him, ask him questions. (Was that part of why he’d thought he’d loved her for that short, heady while? Because she had smiled at him kind and wry, and so very often opened Thursday’s door? Been part of the ritual, the gatekeeper, patient and charming and part of Thursday’s world so that what what he’d felt had welled up had spilled over onto her, unwitting?) Invariably, Mrs. Thursday would come around from the kitchen or the dining room, and ask him, in passing but as though his answer truly mattered to her, how he was. 

Then Thursday would appear. Sometimes he would still be putting on his jacket and tie, and would would be able to catch shocking, thrilling glimpses of shirtsleeves and braces -- he’d always liked that, though he’d refused to guess why. The tiny snatches of at-home, less than public-ready Thursday he was trusted to see, that Thursday was comfortable enough to let him see. Jakes didn’t get to have that, he’d gloated to himself more than once. Thursday would put on his coat and hat in front of the hall mirror, not fussily but with care, while Morse watched. Then he would be witness to the goodbye kiss and the handing off of the sandwiches, routine but never less than sinere, while sometimes-Sam-but-usually-Joan rolled their eyes and smiled with knowing fondness in his direction, can you believe it? they do this every day! and then nod to him as Morse backed out of the warm house again and followed Thursday to the world and to their car, with the warm feeling in his chest that he’d been given care of Thursday for the day. That now, out on the job, his company and keeping was Morse’s to hoard and treasure until he brought him back home. 

When the car doors were both firmly shut, if they weren’t already knee deep in a case, Thursday would ask after him, also like his answer, and his honesty mattered. And he would give more honest answers about himself than he had ever in his life, at any other time or to any other person. And then, most pivotal of all, they would talk about the work, talk, not dictate, Morse would air his theories and Thursday would lend his caution or try to poke holes, but not in bad faith, though sometimes it got heated, but because it mattered, and they had to get it right. 

And Thursday would look at him, sometimes, sitting beside him in that car, with such a complicated intensity in his dark eyes. He’d never known what what it meant of what Thursday had been thinking when he looked like that, but he’d known he’d like it, that it made him feel… not precisely admired, but _seen_. Seen clearly, like no one else had.

Those mornings, from the anticipation as he made his way, to the feeling of relief at their first real conversation of the day, being seen, being listened to, those times when disagreements fell away and he remembered that he had found, unexpectedly, a kindred spirit. For a long time Morse had supposed that was what had drawn him in. Made him feel that sense of connection. And when it had seemed to be fading, or threatened, what he had craved, like some particularly dull and lonely kind of addict. 

Then Thursday had told him that he was going to retire. Not thinking about it vaguely for a hazy possible future, “if” the station closes, or “if” Win keeps asking, perhaps, but concretely, in the present. Cowley station was going to close and Thursday was going to retire when it did. Morse had barely been able to form a response around the yawning horror that had opened up beneath him at the news. Each subsequent time the subject was raised, Thursday would offer friendly, calm reassurances about Morse’s readiness to work on his own and his future in the force, and go on with his certainty that his leaving was done in all but formalities, while Morse, beside him failed utterly to be able to respond, or even think about the idea. Sometimes, away from the man himself, he could plan to say, ‘I don’t think you should go, Sir,’ or want to ask, ‘but what will you do with all that free time? You’re not old and you love being a copper, you’ll go mad without it,’ but in reality, all he can do to continue to get through the day is to refuse to confront the idea entirely. In his head, every thought was replaced with cold static and a suffocating heaviness when forced to think about Thursday leaving him. Every particle in him rebelled. They might meet up for drinks and the kind of play-pretend catching up that once close people do every now and then to remember how much they’d liked each other once and realize how little they knew each other anymore, but he wouldn’t. They wouldn’t… No more cases together, no more casual pub lunches, no more catching the other’ eye over an off-sounding witness statement, no more enlightening squabbles over case theory, no more early morning drives, no more looking after Thursday throughout the day and being looked after in return, no more knowing his mood on sight and being allowed to take a personal interest in it. 

No more counting on Thursday’s presence beside on him, no more guarantee of seeing his face and hearing his voice every day. No more watching his hands as they performed everyday tasks, -- somehow a satisfying and necessary part of his day. No more of seeing Thursday watching him, understanding him, seeing him with an intensity that no one else in his life ever had...

That was when he’d realized, as he looked into a future where all but the faintest echos of Thursday’s presence was stripped from his life. These were not the concerns -- the fears, the dreads, sorrowing rebellion -- of a sargent who’s inspector was moving on. This wasn’t attachment and camaraderie between colleagues. He likes Jim Strange and Max DeBryn, he’d say that he was friends with both of them to varying degrees, but if one of them were to leave he wouldn’t feel this way, like half of himself was about to be pared away -- as thought the first cuts were already being made. It didn’t even feel like this when Claudine left, or when things fell apart with Monica, this was like nothing, not quite like any imminent loss he’d known. 

Morse had avoided knowing for so long, had clung onto denial with his fingernails through the Blenheim Vale ordeal -- just the trauma of being wrongfully imprisoned and natural worry over a partner, like hell -- but now Thursday was really leaving, and there were no more reasonable excuses for not realizing just how entirely felled by love he was. It was painfully obvious, once it shifted into focus, equally terrifying and hopeless, impossible and oppressive as the fact of Thursday’s going, but plain and unrefusable as any puzzle solved. He wondered if it was plain to Thursday, too, if it always had been, or if it had recently had begun to be so, and that was part of why -- but no, he didn’t think so. Thursday was the kind of man, the kind who thought bluntness could at times be mercy, he would have made a clean break of it, likely long ago, if he’d seen. Morse had to believe that, and it was almost a relief. 

So then he’d been caught between two terrible impulses. The certainty that he had to beg Thursday to stay, that he wasn’t sure how he could cope with a life so bare of the person so dear to him -- even in his own thoughts he could only approach it in half-euphemism -- and without the work, what would become of them? And the certainty that he had to keep his mouth shut and make sure Thursday never saw what feelings he harboured. That he should be grateful that they’d had these four and a half years together and it had never been tainted with the explicit discovery of something so unwelcome. 

Then Morse had been sent undercover, and George Fancy had been killed, and the station had closed and Thursday hadn’t left after all but had still refused to see him, and Morse had sunk himself in the country, refusing to think or feel or move too sharply. He had cut himself off from his own deeper self until he wasn’t sure if he even was a person, or ever had been, or if he was just a collection of habits and quirks, some of these now manfully shed. Maybe it had all been some kind of fit of madness, thankfully short lived and done with. Maybe he could make himself willfully blind and finally subdue those wild, baying, sharp, hungry parts himself that so long he had hated and had brought him scorn. Maybe. 

It had taken just eight months to start to get tired of the strain of self-immobilization. It had taken just the sight of Thursday, a sombre yet thrilling figure in the July sun, to strip away the haze of pleasant fiction.

**


End file.
